- What is Tablar and how is it different from Laravel Breeze or Jetstream?
- Tablar is a Laravel dashboard preset, not a runtime library: it publishes a Blade layout system, auth scaffolding, and a Vite build chain wrapped around the Tabler admin template directly into your application. Breeze and Jetstream are Tailwind-based starter kits, whereas Tablar is Bootstrap-based and ships a complete admin dashboard with dark mode and config-driven menu generation. In practice, adopting Tablar is closer to adopting a view layer you own than installing a dependency, which is why it fits greenfield admin backends well and retrofits into an existing design system poorly.
- How do I install Tablar in a fresh Laravel application?
- Run composer require takielias/tablar, then php artisan tablar:install to publish the config, views, and assets, followed by npm install and a Vite build, then php artisan migrate. From version 13.8.0 you can add the --with-auth flag to the installer to scaffold authentication, publish migrations, and skip the previously separate tablar:export-auth step. The flag is opt-in and additive, so a plain install behaves exactly as before.
- Which Laravel versions does Tablar support?
- The current 13.x branch targets Laravel 12 and 13, stated explicitly in the 13.8.0 release notes, so do not assume it serves Laravel 11. Dedicated 10.x and 11.x branches remain available for older majors, but new work lands on 12/13. Match your branch to your Laravel major at plan time rather than after install.
- Does Tablar use Tailwind CSS or Bootstrap?
- Tablar is built on the Tabler admin template, which is Bootstrap-based, not Tailwind. If your team standardizes on Tailwind, Breeze, or Jetstream, adopting Tablar is a styling fork rather than a merge, and mixing both frameworks in one app adds build and maintenance overhead. For projects without a Tailwind commitment, the Bootstrap foundation is a non-issue.
- How does dynamic menu generation work in Tablar?
- Menus are defined in the package configuration and rendered by the Blade layout components, so you add or reorder sidebar items by editing config instead of hand-writing navigation markup. Because the views are published into resources/views, you can also customize the rendering itself when config alone is not enough. This keeps navigation changes cheap as an internal tool grows.
- Does Tablar include dark mode?
- Yes. Dark mode is a headline feature of the preset and comes from the underlying Tabler UI, so it works out of the box without extra packages or custom CSS. You can expose a theme toggle to users or default the dashboard to dark through the layout configuration.
- How do I install Tablar with authentication scaffolding?
- Use php artisan tablar:install --with-auth, which folds the former tablar:export-auth step into the installer, publishes the auth migrations, and leaves php artisan migrate as your next command. Version 13.x replaced the deprecated laravel/ui dependency with self-contained, Breeze-inspired scaffolding. Plan for a one-time review of route and guard collisions if you already have auth in the app, and audit routes/web.php once if you ran older versions that appended duplicate route includes.
- Will composer update overwrite the Blade views I customized?
- No. Tablar publishes its views into resources/views, so composer update will not touch them, but that also means upstream fixes are not delivered automatically. Every Laravel major or Tabler minor upgrade requires a manual diff of the affected Blade files. If you only need small changes, prefer overriding selectively through the views_path config option rather than publishing and owning the whole template.
- Can I use Tablar with Livewire?
- Yes. Livewire support was added in the 11.2 line, and a companion tablar-kit Blade component library extends reuse across projects. Combined with the configurable layout root, this lets you build interactive admin screens without abandoning the preset's structure. Confirm your package branch matches both your Laravel and Livewire versions before committing.
- Is Tablar actively maintained and safe for production use?
- Tablar has CI with test and lint workflows, tracks Laravel majors on dedicated branches, and is MIT licensed, so you have the legal right to fork if needed. The realistic caveats are a single maintainer, a small ecosystem with few dependent packages and little community documentation, and uneven changelog quality on some releases. Treat it as code you own: pin versions, review upgrades deliberately, and budget for the possibility of maintaining your own fork.